Sedo

A few years ago, I made an offer on a domain name on Sedo for something like $1,000, and the owner counter offered at over $50,000. I immediately hit the cancel negotiations button knowing the difference was too great of a gap to overcome. A few moments after confirming the cancellation, I received an email from Sedo congratulating me on buying the domain name, and for the next few days I frantically did what I could to make sure the sale wasn’t enforced.

As a result of this, up until recently, I haven’t bid on many domain names using Sedo. On top of the problem I faced, I just don’t like the process of using a company to negotiate with a domain owner on my behalf, and I usually sell my inventory of domain names so quickly, it doesn’t make sense to put them up for sale on a platform like Sedo, as I would then have to take them down when they sell.

Over the past couple of months, I have been using Sedo more often to make offers on domain names. One thing that really aggravates me is the the Seller’s Listing Price. If a seller has a listing price, I should be able to buy it right away if I offer that price. The sale should be completed rather than starting a negotiation if I give the seller what he wants. I made an offer on a name that matched the listing price, and I still haven’t heard back. IMO, there should be a Buy It Now button if you don’t make an offer that is lower than the asking price.

My second issue is probably more of an error but I don’t use Sedo enough to know if it’s a one time error or something that happens more frequently.   There was a name on Sedo with a Listing Price of $375, and I tried to buy it for $375. For some reason after placing my bid, I got an error message saying the minimum bid is $1,500. I understand that this may have been a mistake, but I don’t know how Sedo’s system didn’t catch the error, as it shouldn’t allow someone to set an asking price lower than the minimum bid they would accept.

I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about Sedo as I have been using their system more frequently.

Oftentimes, trademark holders and domain owners or investors have opposing viewpoints on domain ownership. Both parties frequently feel that they have the right to specific domain names, and the battles to get them can either be fought through a mediation-esque procedure like UDRP or through the legal system.

Recently, Sedo along with Google, Yahoo, Overstock.com and Research In Motion were nominated for a 2010 World Trademark Review (WTR) Industry Award for Internet & Online Services in the category of Legal Team of the Year. According to the press release I received, Sedo was nominated “for its ability to educate and counsel businesses on how to protect their own intellectual property (IP) rights and expand their brands online.”

Sedo has been in the middle of many high profile public domain sales, and they have also acted as the broker for a significant amount of private domain sales that will never be reported. Many of these sales are made between trademark interests and domain owners, and the company is able to work out a fair agreement between differing philosophical opinions on domain ownership rights.

There are many groups that work for and with trademark interests, and some seem to prefer to bully and battle domain owners rather than work together with them. Sedo seems to be bridging the gap between trademark holders and their interests, and domain owners and investors.